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17How To Best Deal With Angry People
“Just calm down, it’s not that bad.”
You turn to your friend in disbelief. Did they really just say that?
You were angry before, but now you are fuming.
What’s worse than their words is that look in their eyes when you turn to face them.
The concerned look, the slight, arrogant smile on their face, and their raised eyebrows make one thing very clear: They have no idea how you feel.
Telling someone to calm down, that things are not that bad or saying that they shouldn’t feel this way shows that the person cannot accept something outside their own reality.
To them, in their experience, point of view or from their angle, the situation is just not that bad and they cannot place themselves in your shoes.
The reason people get more angry when you say things like this is that you are basically telling them to deny themselves!
Think about it this way: What would you do if someone told you to stop being yourself? To stop being happy, to stop being sad, and to stop being angry?
You would think that you are not good enough.
If someone tells us to “calm down” we feel as though we are not taken for who we are. We believe that we are less because we are angry or frustrated about the situation.
When a person feels strong emotions they do not want to be judged; they want to be understood!
That means you should first acknowledge the way they feel rather than even trying to fix the situation.
“I am sorry you feel so angry. I do not know what made you this angry but it must be something really intense. And I am sorry for that. Would you mind telling me what made you so angry? Would you mind helping me understand how you feel?”
Many people do not go down this path, thinking they know better or being so sure of their own point of view that it does not make sense to them to take on another point of view.
The problem with this is that the person across from them does not feel the same way, and therefore will see the situation from a completely different angle and through emotionally-tinted glasses.
